Thursday, March 17, 2011

Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Tea Party Candidate Solves Social Problems, Shoots Self In Foot

Tea Party social welfare program?

In case you were wondering why we haven't solved the problem of how to get cheap food on the table without large numbers of undocumented workers who will work under substandard conditions for no money, it's because wussy liberals won't bring back the chain gang.

Okay, Jack Davis, who wants to run for the vacant seat in New York's 26th congressional district didn't quite say that. But this is what the Tea Party candidate did say, according to reporter Jerry Zremski, as he was being screened by the GOP in that state:

that Latino farm workers [should] be deported -- and that African-Americans from the inner city [could] be bused to farm country to pick the crops.

Several sources who were in the Feb. 20 endorsement interview with Davis confirmed his comments, which echo those he made to the Tonawanda News in 2008, when he said: "We have a huge unemployment problem with black youth in our cities. Put them on buses, take them out there [to the farms] and pay them a decent wage; they will work."

Since Davis has been articulating such views publicly for at least two years, so the shock being expressed by the New York Republican Party leadership means little else than that they aren't doing their homework.

"I was thunderstruck," said Amherst GOP Chairman Marshall Wood. "Maybe in 1860 that might have been seen by some as an appropriate comment, but not now."

Davis spokesman W. Curtis Ellis acknowledged that Davis' comments "may not be politically correct and ... may not be racially correct."

Yes, Mr. Ellis, we can start there. Davis's comments are also really st00pid. One wonders how far the Tea Party tolerance for come one, come all freedom of expression will extend in the next election cycle if upstate New York Republicans (who are about as conservative as God makes 'em and not your normal bastions of political correctness) are running for the hills on this one.

10 comments:

Widgeon
said...

Greetings from Buffalo:This is the same party that supported Carl Paladino who said poor blacks should be taught personal hygiene and housed in closed prisons. What they are really trying to do is get rid of Jack Davis and drive him back to the Democratic Party (he has run as a Democrat, Republican, and Independent). The outrage over Davis's comment by party leaders is manufactured.

I suppose it's wrong that I was hoping the title of this post was literal... only because I thought it would be incredibly ironic, not because I actually wish anybody to injure themselves with firearms.

Just to continue to complicate this issue readers might want to check out Rod Watson's column in the Buffalo News:http://www.buffalonews.com/city/columns/rod-watson/article369249.eceDavis is not a tea partier--his main issue in the past has been opposing free trade. This is bad news, of course, because it means that racist ideas are not only the purview of one political party or ideology.

Correction--having been rejected by every other party Davis is (as TR reported) trying to run as the "Tea Party" candidate. Truly, this is a man with too much money trying to push his agenda in whatever way he can. Privileged white guy syndrome.

well, the offensive part is where we ascribe any part of the problem with race and get all uppity about deportation, but it's true that if we provide transportation to the unemployed to send them to jobs with a DECENT WAGE, that's a big step in the right direction!

As much as I'm happy to ascribe whatever heinous views to tea partiers, tying Jack Davis to them is iffy. The guy is just flat nuts (even aside from his politics) and went from being a Republican to a Democrat to now an independent who has chosen to run as a Tea Party candidate without actually being what we would traditionally call a tea partier.

Have you read Heather Thompson's article in the December JAH? Apparently, we already do have inner city African Americans doing hard labor-- just for a prison wage rather than a living wage. Of course, the corporate profits off the labor are more than decent!

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I am Claire B. Potter, Professor of History and American Studies at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. My blogging ethic is neither to name or to accurately describe individuals unless I am writing about a public event, or commenting on information already published about that person in a reputable source. Unless I note otherwise, situations, pseudonymous people and professional dilemmas described here are fictional. Uncivil or mean-spirited comments toward me or anyone else will be deleted, as will advertisements for products or services disguising themselves as comments. The Radical can also be found at her Zenith faculty page and at Cliopatria; scholarly and public writing can also be found here. The banner photo was taken from this page.

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